An issue has been raised that some patients who have BT landlines are not able to receive telephone calls from their practice.

BT have introduced a “Call Protect” service which appears to block certain numbers that BT have identified as nuisance callers, which unfortunately may include some practices.

When calling patients, the call is not accepted and the caller is asked to leave a message on the 1572 system and patients may not be aware that there is a message, or how to retrieve the message.

Customers may not be even aware that they have been enrolled onto this service and would have to update the ‘block list’ either via the BT portal or by contacting BT and request that the practice number is removed from the block list.